The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Here you go,” he told Annabelle a moment later as he balanced a slightly smaller rock on top of the bigger one. “Take a shot at this.”

  Chapter 10

  The rest of that day passed without incident. The Kid kept a close eye on their backtrail but saw no signs of pursuit. Annabelle was adamant that Count Fortunato was still behind them somewhere.

  “He won’t give up,” she said. “I’ve heard enough stories about him to know that. He’s like a bulldog once he gets his teeth into something.”

  That night was quiet. The Kid and Annabelle took turns standing guard again. The Kid couldn’t think of a good excuse to deny Father Jardine’s request to take one of the shifts, so he said bluntly, “I’m sorry, padre, but if there’s any trouble, I have a hunch you might hesitate before you pull the trigger. That could cost all of us our lives.”

  “Very well,” Father Jardine replied stiffly. “It’s true that my beliefs would never allow me to kill as swiftly and without remorse as you, Mr. Morgan.”

  The Kid felt a surge of anger. If the priest wanted to talk about remorse, The Kid was old friends with that emotion. But instead of saying anything, he just gave Father Jardine a stony nod and moved to the edge of the camp with the Winchester, where he could keep an eye on things.

  They arrived at Las Cruces late the next day, crossing a long wooden bridge over the Rio Grande just west of the settlement. Annabelle was still a little leery of going into a town.

  “Fortunato could have spies there, waiting for us,” she said as she drove the wagon toward the cluster of frame and adobe buildings.

  “He’s already dogging your trail,” The Kid pointed out. “It’s not like he doesn’t know where you’re going.”

  “But how could he know? That’s what’s puzzled me all along.”

  “How many people in Mexico City knew where you were headed?” The Kid asked.

  “Not many. A few church and government officials. We had to have their help while we were trying to track down Konigsberg.”

  “Well, there’s your answer. An hombre who has as much money as this fella Fortunato and doesn’t mind spending it to get what he wants can find out almost anything. He probably just started bribing folks in Mexico City until somebody told him where you and the padre had gone.”

  “You seem to think money is the answer to everything, Mr. Morgan.”

  “No, not everything,” The Kid said with a shake of his head as he thought about all the things money couldn’t buy. “It won’t stop a bullet, or bring back somebody you’ve lost.”

  He knew that all too well.

  Annabelle frowned at him and looked puzzled, as if she wanted to ask him what he meant by that. He heeled the buckskin to a faster pace and rode ahead. The last thing he wanted was to have to answer a bunch of nosy questions from some doggone curious female.

  Las Cruces was a good-sized settlement. The railroad tracks ran along the western edge of town, so The Kid came to them first. He crossed the tracks and looked toward the depot, a large adobe building with a red tile roof a couple of blocks to his right. The street that dead-ended at the train station appeared to form a dividing line of sorts, with the respectable businesses and residences, along with the churchs and the school, to the north of it, and the saloons, cantinas, gambling dens, and whorehouses to the south.

  It was a common enough arrangement in frontier towns, The Kid knew. If there was no natural boundary to set the high-toned folks apart from their more rough-hewn fellow citizens, they would come up with an arbitrary one.

  The Kid turned in the saddle and waved the wagon on. It bumped roughly over the railroad tracks. As Annabelle drove up alongside The Kid, he pointed out a large emporium to her and said, “Take the wagon over there. We’ll stock up on supplies, then go down to the public well there at the end of the street and top off the water barrels.”

  She nodded. “All right. Then what?”

  “Well, we could push on toward the Jornada and make camp somewhere, but there’s only a couple of hours of daylight left. By the time we pick up those supplies, there’ll just be an hour or so. Doesn’t hardly seem worth it.”

  “Are you suggesting that we spend the night here in Las Cruces?”

  “I reckon it would make the most sense. You could get a good night’s sleep in a real bed for a change.”

  Judging by the look on her face, Annabelle didn’t like the idea very much. She turned to the priest and asked, “What do you think, Father?”

  “Mr. Morgan is right,” Father Jardine said, although he sounded like it pained him a mite to admit that. “We should make a fresh start in the morning.”

  “All right…but I think we should guard the wagon overnight.”

  The Kid pointed to a livery stable and wagon yard across the street. “The outfit will be fine over there,” he said.

  “You don’t understand. If Fortunato has agents here, they could sabotage the wagon and hold us up long enough for him to catch us.”

  If it hadn’t been for the things he’d seen so far, The Kid might be starting to think that Annabelle was a little loco on the subject of Fortunato. She seemed to believe that the count or his men were lurking behind every rock and bush, ready to jump them.

  But he recalled those men who’d been chasing the wagon and the long-range shot that had creased Annabelle’s arm, and he couldn’t guarantee that she was overstating the threat. Maybe she was right.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll stay with the wagon. You and the padre can get rooms in one of the hotels and get a good night’s sleep.”

  “That hardly seems fair,” Annabelle protested.

  “I can bed down just fine in the wagon, so if anybody tries to bother it, they’ll get a mighty big surprise.”

  “Well…it would feel nice to sleep in an actual bed again.”

  The Kid smiled. “It’s a deal, then. Come on, let’s see about getting those supplies. That way, we’ll be ready to pull out first thing in the morning and won’t have to wait.”

  Annabelle had tucked her long red hair up under her hat, but there was no disguising the curves of her body. The sight of a woman wearing men’s clothing and packing a gun drew some curious looks from the people in the street as she drove the wagon over to the general store and parked it in front of the high front porch that served as a loading dock. The Kid saw the stiff set of her face and knew she was doing her best to ignore the stares.

  Annabelle and Father Jardine climbed down from the seat. “I’m going to walk over to the church,” the priest said, nodding toward a large adobe building topped by a bell tower.

  “All right, but be careful,” Annabelle said. “Don’t tell anyone who you are.”

  Father Jardine just smiled. “I agreed not to wear my cassock in an attempt to conceal my identity, Doctor, but obviously, that ruse failed. I see no need for further deception.”

  “Just humor me, Father, all right?”

  The priest sighed and then nodded. “Very well. It will be as you wish.”

  Father Jardine ambled off toward the church. The Kid and Annabelle went into the store.

  The place was fairly busy. They had to wait to be helped by one of the aproned clerks behind the counter in the rear of the store. While they were standing around, The Kid consulted with Annabelle about exactly what they would need, so they had a list worked out by the time it was their turn. The clerk used a stub of a pencil to scrawl their order on a piece of butcher paper, then set about gathering up the supplies.

  Feeling eyes on him, The Kid glanced over and saw a couple of little boys standing in front of a glass-fronted candy case, stealing glances at him and whispering to each other. He smiled at them, and that emboldened one of the youngsters enough for him to come a couple of steps closer and ask, “Mister, are you a gunfighter?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  The boy pointed at the revolver riding in the buscadero holster on The Kid’s hip. “My pa says that men who carry a six-shooter like t
hat are gunfighters.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to go against anything your pa told you,” The Kid said, still smiling. “I’m not really a gunfighter, though.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I just pretend to be one.”

  “But…ain’t that dangerous?” the boy asked with wide eyes.

  “Not if you pretend good enough.” The Kid took a couple of pennies from his pocket and held them out on the palm of his hand. “You and your pard have some licorice on me.”

  “Gee, thanks, mister!” Both boys snatched a coin from The Kid’s hand. They turned eagerly toward the candy counter, but the one who’d been talking glanced back and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Morgan,” The Kid said.

  “Thanks, Mr. Morgan!”

  A minute later, as the youngsters scampered out of the store trailing long strings of licorice they had bought with the pennies The Kid had given them, Annabelle commented, “That was nice of you.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “You put up a hard façade, Mr. Morgan. It’s nice to know that there are at least a few tiny cracks in it.”

  The Kid didn’t think it was so nice. In fact, he told himself that he was going to have be more diligent about being a hardcase. He didn’t want anybody thinking that he was turning soft, even his traveling companions.

  A few minutes later, the clerk set a couple of wooden boxes on the counter. “Here you go, folks,” he said. “These are the supplies you wanted.”

  “Much obliged,” The Kid said. “How much do we owe you?”

  “Three dollars and six bits.”

  The Kid reached for his pocket. Annabelle said, “Wait a minute. I can pay for this.”

  “No need,” The Kid told her. “If I’m going to be traveling with you, I can pay my share of the freight.”

  The fact of the matter was, he could have bought and sold their whole outfit thousands of times over. He didn’t have that much cash on him, of course, but there was plenty of money in bank accounts in Boston, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, and Carson City. Of course, the name on those accounts wasn’t Kid Morgan, but he could put his hands on the funds any time he wanted them, just by sending a few wires to the attorneys who handled his legal and business affairs. His father Frank, who was equally wealthy because they had shared in the inheritance from Vivian Browning, had the same sort of set-up.

  That was just one more thing he had learned from Frank Morgan, The Kid thought with a faint smile.

  He handed a five-dollar gold piece to the clerk, collected his change, and then tried to pick up both boxes. Annabelle took one of them out of his hands.

  “The least you can do is let me help carry them out,” she said.

  “All right,” The Kid said as they took the boxes and turned toward the open double doors that led out onto the general store’s porch.

  They stopped short as three men suddenly appeared in the doorway, blocking it. “Morgan? Kid Morgan?” one of them challenged in a loud, harsh voice.

  “Oh, hell,” The Kid said softly, under his breath. He knew all too well what was coming next. Those varmints wanted to prove that they were faster on the draw than he was.

  And there he stood, his hands full of flour, salt, sugar, and a side of bacon instead of a six-gun.

  Chapter 11

  “Mr. Morgan?” Annabelle said, her voice taut with worry.

  “Move off to the side, Doctor,” he told her. His eyes never left the three men as he spoke. He was at another disadvantage there, because they had the light from outside behind them. The late afternoon sun wasn’t as bright as if it had been midday, but even so, the men in the doorway were little more than silhouettes to The Kid.

  He kept his eyes on them anyway, watching for any telltale twitches or other involuntary movements before they slapped leather.

  Annabelle hadn’t moved. She asked, “Is there going to be trouble of some sort? Should I try to find the local authorities?”

  One of the men laughed. “You do that, missy,” he said. “You go find the local authorities.”

  Annabelle stiffened and took a step toward them. “How dare you mock me!” she said. “I’ll have you know that I’m a doctor!”

  “Good. Your friend there’s gonna need a sawbones when we get through with him.”

  “More likely an undertaker,” added one of the other men.

  “Dr. Dare,” The Kid said between clenched teeth. “Annabelle. Get the hell out of the way.”

  “Oh!” she said. But she moved; that was the important thing as far as The Kid was concerned. Carrying the box she had taken from him, she edged away, if not completely out of any possible line of fire, at least farther away from it.

  “I just came in here for supplies,” The Kid told the men in the doorway. “I wasn’t looking for trouble.”

  “You found it anyway, mister. We been hearin’ all over the territory about this gun-thrower who calls hisself Kid Morgan. That’d be you, right?”

  The Kid knew there was no point in denying it. “I’m Kid Morgan,” he said.

  “My name’s Culhane,” said the man in the middle of the trio. He nodded to the man on his right. “Jericho.” And on his left. “Mawson.”

  “Can’t say as I’m happy to make your acquaintance.”

  “Reckon not, since we’re the men who’re gonna kill you.”

  At first, The Kid had heard a lot of scurrying around behind him. He knew the clerks and the other customers were hunting cover. Now an uneasy silence hung over the store. The Kid didn’t hear anyone moving around.

  “Doctor,” he said.

  “Wh-what is it, Mr. Morgan?”

  “You see anyone else besides me and these three hombres in here?”

  “No,” Annabelle said. “Everyone’s hiding. It’s like the store is empty except for us.”

  “Good.” The Kid addressed the three men in the doorway. “Culhane, you and your pards just back on out of here, and nobody has to die.”

  “You got that wrong,” the gunman called Mawson said. “You have to die, Morgan, if we’re gonna be famous.”

  “Famous for gunning down a man when the odds are three to one in your favor? A man who has his hands full and can’t even reach for a gun?”

  “People will forget the details,” Culhane said. “They’ll just remember that we’re the men who killed Kid Morgan. And you can drop that box any time you want to. In fact, you’d better do it right about—”

  The Kid saw the tiny, almost imperceptible lift of their shoulders as they tensed to draw. At that same moment, a side door into the store opened and the little boy who had talked to The Kid earlier ran in, saying, “Mr. Morgan! Mr. Morgan!”

  The Kid didn’t drop the box of supplies. He threw it at the three gunmen, sending it sailing through the air toward them. Instinct made them duck away from it, even though it didn’t reach them but crashed to the floor in front of them.

  By the time the box hit the floorboards, The Kid’s Colt was in his hand, spewing flame. It roared and bucked against his palm. His first shot punched into Culhane’s chest, knocking the gunman back a step. The Kid had no way of knowing which of the three men was the fastest on the draw. It was just a gamble, no matter what he did. But Culhane was a loudmouth, so he got the first bullet.

  A shaved instant of time later, The Kid’s second bullet broke Mawson’s shoulder and spun him half around. That was the moment The Kid realized he had made a mistake. He should have started at one end or the other. Now he had to backtrack to kill Jericho, and if the man was fast at all—

  He was. The gun in Jericho’s hand blasted. He had gotten a shot off, which was more than Culhane or Mawson had managed. The Kid heard the wind-rip of the slug past his ear as he shifted his aim and fired again. Jericho doubled over as the bullet ripped into his gut. He stumbled forward and forced his head up as he tried to lift his gun for another shot. The Kid put a round between his eyes. Jericho’s head jerked, and he collapsed.

  The
only one still on his feet was Mawson. His right arm hung useless at his side. He had dropped his gun. But his left hand darted behind his neck and came out with a knife that was hidden in a sheath that hung down his back. He screamed a curse as he threw the knife at The Kid.

  Twisting to the side, The Kid fired instinctively at Mawson as the spinning blade flickered past his eyes. He heard it thud into something behind him. Mawson toppled to the floor, blood spurting from his neck where The Kid’s bullet had torn it open. His bootheels drummed against the boards as he died.

  The whole thing had taken about five seconds, even though to The Kid’s danger-heightened senses it had seemed considerably longer. As the deafening echoes of the shots began to die away, he glanced over at Annabelle, who’d had the good sense to drop the supplies and hit the floor when all hell broke loose.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  She looked up at him, swallowed hard, and nodded.

  The Kid turned his head to look the other way and smiled at the little boy, who stood there with his eyes so wide it seemed like they were about to pop out of his head. Part of a licorice whip still dangled from his grubby hand.

  “How about you, son? You’re not hurt, are you?”

  The boy found his voice after a couple of seconds. “N-no, sir, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Stay right there,” The Kid told him and strode forward to check on the three would-be gunfighters.

  It was easy to see that Mawson was dead; a huge pool of blood surrounded his head. The Kid had put a bullet in Jericho’s brain, so he knew Jericho wasn’t a threat anymore. That left Culhane, who had landed with his head on the porch and the rest of his body in the store. The Kid saw the lifeless eyes staring upward and knew that Culhane was dead, too.

  He had killed three men in less than five seconds. That was just going to add to his growing reputation, and someday, some other hombre who fancied himself fast on the draw would throw down on him because of it. But the alternative would have been to stand there and let those three bastards kill him, and The Kid was damned if he was going to do that.